Practicing Development: Managing Ambiguity & Contradiction with Dr. Susan Holcombe

Dr. Susan Holcombe joined the Global Development Policy Center this week to discuss the subject of her latest co-edited volume, Practicing Development: Upending Assumptions for Positive Change. Dr. Holcombe, a Professor Emerita of the Practice at Brandeis University, said she was inspired to work on the book after realizing that narratives from the global north dominated the conversation on development, leaving little room for those in the global south to determine the development plans that came into their countries. She discussed changes in the practice of development, naming the industrialization of the field and increasing emphasis on evaluation techniques as challenges to progress. According to Dr. Holcombe, today is a point of reflection in development practice as new actors enter the stage and budgets reflect decreasing prioritization.

Join the GDP Center for its next luncheon seminar on February 24, “Give and Take: Developmental Foreign Aid and the Pharmaceutical Industry in East Africa” with Professor Nitsan Chorev from Brown University.